To Touch the Clouds : The Frontier Series 5 (37 page)

But his sister was still a problem and George continued to pace the office. He stared out the window at the busy street below where people went on with their business, untouched by what was occurring in far-off European cities. George knew that Fenella would never be found guilty of murder if she returned to Sydney but rather would fall into her father’s arms as the prodigal daughter.

Frowning, George returned to his desk and considered the single sheet of paper from the American. The world might be facing horrific times ahead but still George felt desperate about wanting sole claim to the Macintosh empire after his father’s death. If anything should happen to Fenella in America who would know of her fate? She had so carefully concealed her flight from Sydney. But now he had a clue as to where she might be and when all traces of the telegram were destroyed he alone in Sydney would know where to find her.

The thought came to George as he heard in the distance a paperboy calling the headlines that Germany had declared war on France. If only he could despatch an assassin to America to kill his sister her death would be swallowed up in the over-riding international events. George leaned back in his leather chair, considering how he might go about organising such a thing. With a grim smile, he sat up and
leaned forward. Of course he had the means to make that happen, he gloated. All he had to do was make his contacts and the matter of his sister’s demise would be assured. The only obstacle was Randolph Gates. So the job would also entail disposing of the American but the financial cost would be worth it.

George picked up the telegram from his desk and reached for a box of matches. Carefully he held the edge of the paper until it burned away. He dropped the ashes in a waste paper bin and reached for his telephone to make a call.

23

M
atthew and Alex found themselves secured in the town’s gaol for the first night. They were still being treated with courtesy but they both knew that they were also considered as spies. The German police had not bothered to separate them and they had the opportunity to discuss matters.

‘What is the date today?’ Alex asked, having lost track of time since the Macintosh ship had been sunk.

Matthew thought for a moment. ‘I think it’s the fifth of August. Why would you ask?’

‘It is Fenella’s birthday, today,’ Alex sighed. ‘And I don’t have a clue where she is – or even if she is well.’

Matthew stared at a translucent gecko high on the wall above their heads but was distracted by the sound of cheering coming from the streets. A bugle was blasting out discordant notes and somewhere someone was beating a drum. He turned to Alex with a puzzled look.

Already Alex was straining to hear what the people outside were shouting but could not pick up any words in the background of what appeared to be celebrations. Eventually the noise subsided and Hauptmann Hirsch appeared at the door to their cell.

‘Good afternoon, Captain Macintosh, Mr Duffy,’ he said with a grim expression. ‘I gather you would have heard the celebrations a moment ago.’

‘What is going on?’ Alex asked. ‘Are you celebrating the Kaiser’s birthday?’

Hauptmann Hirsch shook his head. ‘I am afraid that England has declared war on us,’ he said sadly. ‘You can now consider yourself as our first prisoners of war as I strongly suspect that your country will quickly follow in the footsteps of your mother country.’

‘What do you intend to do to us?’ Matthew asked, gripping the bars on the cell door. ‘I gather you will put us on trial.’

‘I am afraid so,’ Hirsch answered. ‘We have enough evidence to support a charge of espionage against you both, and the fact that you are a civilian matters little in this case, Mr Duffy.’

‘And if we are found guilty?’ Matthew persisted. ‘What then?’

Hirsch looked away. ‘The penalty for spying is death. But you will receive a fair hearing by authorised German officers. I have volunteered my services as your defence counsel and I promise that I will do my best to have you both acquitted.’

‘Can a military court try Matthew?’ Alex broke in.

‘Yes, in time of war it can,’ Hirsch replied. ‘I am sorry, my friends, that it has come to this, that we should be enemies.’

‘So am I, Dieter,’ Alex said sorrowfully. ‘Why can’t the rest of the world just leave us alone out here in the Pacific?’

‘I echo your sentiments, Alex,’ Hirsch said. ‘I dread the thought of Rabaul being turned into a war zone. This is a paradise – not intended to become a hell. I must go and speak with Major Pfieffer; he is arranging the military court for your trial.’

Hirsch left the two men frowning at each other.

‘You realise that the Germans have enough evidence to convict us,’ Matthew said. ‘Between the security leak in Australia and the aircraft stashed at the Schumann plantation they will be able to make a case. I doubt that it will even have to be beyond a reasonable doubt.’

‘I know,’ Alex said, squatting in a corner of the cell. ‘If only we had got away when we could. I am sorry, Matthew, for getting you into this situation.’

Matthew was tempted to remind his cousin that it had been his beloved Giselle who had betrayed them, but bit his tongue. He could see that Alex was on the point of despair. ‘Don’t worry, old chap,’ he said. ‘I believe that the tradition is that before we are either shot or hanged, our executioners grant us a good meal and a smoke. I could do with both right now.’

But Alex did not laugh at his cousin’s morbid sense of humour.

‘We are facing a probable invasion of our territories by the English,’ Major Pfieffer said to Dieter Hirsch as they stood in the shade of a large mango tree in the street in front of the major’s office. ‘I doubt that we have time to set up a trial for the two prisoners.’

‘Then we put them on the first available ship back to
Germany as prisoners of war,’ Hirsch concluded, only to have his superior stare at him as if he were a child.

‘No, you organise to have them both shot,’ he said. ‘We have better things to do than worry about the fate of two spies.’

Hirsch was shocked at his senior’s response to the lives of the prisoners. ‘That would be murder,’ he blurted. ‘I cannot condone the execution of two prisoners who have not been given a trial.’

‘You don’t think it is inevitable that they would be found guilty and executed anyway?’ Pfieffer asked. ‘Organising a trial is a waste of valuable time and resources. Make sure that they are both dead before the sun rises tomorrow. I don’t care how it is done but I want to hear they have been disposed of.’

‘Yes, sir, I will organise for their disposal,’ he replied, saluting his superior officer.

Pfieffer stared hard at the German militia captain. ‘You failed to kill Captain Macintosh on his first visit to Rabaul some months ago,’ he said icily. ‘The Fatherland is not so forgiving of a second failure.’

Pfieffer returned the salute and left Hirsch considering the punishment for disobeying orders – legal or not. Germany was at war and he knew that any concepts of justice came a poor second to the national aims of winning. He had only hours to think of some way of saving the two men currently in the police cells, men who were now declared enemies of his country.

The heat shimmered across the plains of the tough, stunted scrub of Queensland’s central west. Shadows baked and the kangaroo rose from the hot earth where it had been dozing.
It was alert to something alien stalking it and its large ears twitched, attempting to locate where the threat was coming from.

Wallarie knew that his eyesight was poor, but the desire to return to the hunt brought him out from the cave with one of his old hunting spears. He could see the big marsupial stirring and realised that it might be long gone before he was within range to hurl his weapon and impale his prey.

Beyond the resting kangaroo Wallarie could see the swirling shape of a column of wind twisting skyward, dancing between the stunted scrub, picking up red earth and desiccated grass. He lowered his spear and gazed at the dust column and, as if in a trance, crouched and began chanting a song almost forgotten by his long-lost clan. The fabric of the universe was changing in places he did not know, but the ancestor spirits had been there to tell him. Before the old warrior swarmed the faces of long dead friends and family. Wallarie was frightened. He could see the face of Matthew Duffy among those of the dead. The pastor at the mission station on Glen View would have told him he was seeing evil, heathen things better confessed about for the sake of his eternal soul. Wallarie had been told he must recognise Jesus Christ before he could be granted eternal salvation otherwise he would forever burn in the fires of the whitefellas’ hell.

The kangaroo would be safe this day. Wallarie continued to squat in the dust of the brigalow plains, chanting his song for the dead.

Evening had come to the German town of Rabaul and the two prisoners in their cell had been fed. Neither spoke much but sat with their fears for what might be their fate.

Before midnight, Matthew and Alex attempted to sleep on the concrete floor; no beds were provided, nor any mattress. In the background they could hear the sounds of the town celebrating the proclamation of war against the English, French and Russians, but Alex thought the cheering sounded rather subdued now as the citizens realised just how vulnerable they were on the fringes of the German Empire to the larger forces of the British in the Pacific. Their only real chance was their navy operating out of China and many privately prayed that the Imperial navy would suddenly materialise in the harbour to protect them.

Hauptmann Dieter Hirsch did not pray for the appearance of the big battle cruisers. He knew that they took time to arrive and would no doubt be assigned to other tasks. He had spent the daylight hours pondering the steps he must take to ensure two defenceless men were not taken from their cells and executed with a bullet in the back of the head. He realised that what he was doing amounted to treason, plotting to give assistance to an enemy combatant and his assistant civilian spy. But Dieter Hirsch was also part civilian and believed that even in war one could not simply execute a man for the fact he was on the other side – even if he was a spy. To do so would simply condone the same thing happening to his comrades in other places, should they also be captured. No, even war had rules to keep some semblance of humanity in hellish times.

‘Are you awake?’ Hirsch asked softly through the cell door. Matthew and Alex scrambled to their feet.

‘What is happening?’ Alex asked, gripping the bars of the cell door.

Hirsch glanced around him to ensure that they could not be overheard. The gaoler was a fat German police officer who was more used to locking up local Tolai and
a few drunken civilians for the night – not dangerous English spies. He stood at the end of the short corridor, dangling a set of keys from his leather belt, idly watching the German militia captain talking softly to his prisoners and annoyed to hear him speaking in English, which he did not understand.

‘I am going to get you out of here. You must make a break for the hills to Father Umberto’s mission station,’ Hirsch said. ‘Captain Macintosh, I know that you will remember the trail,’ he continued. ‘I am sure that the Italian priest will give you sanctuary.’

‘You know about Father Umberto?’ Alex asked.

‘We have for some time,’ Hirsch answered. ‘You have to get away from here as fast as possible. I have orders to shoot you before the sun rises.’

‘You do realise what you are doing?’ Alex asked. ‘You could be arrested and even executed for helping us escape.’

‘It will not look as if I was helping you,’ Dieter Hirsch replied with a crooked grin. ‘I have decided that your execution should be carried out by me alone, so as not to involve any other member of the Imperial Army in this disgrace. So listen carefully and I will tell you how it will be done but, unfortunately, I have been forced to bring two of my men with me for the task. I suspect that Major Pfieffer has ordered me to do so in order to have witnesses to your deaths.’

Matthew and Alex listened to the German officer outlay his plan. It was dangerous but it was their only hope if they were to survive.

Hirsch walked back to the gaoler at the end of the corridor and the two Australians watched as he engaged him in conversation, noticing the shocked expression on the policeman’s face. He waddled towards their cell and, stony-faced,
opened the door, gesturing to Matthew to come out. He then locked the door behind him, leaving Alex alone.

‘The chains will not be necessary,’ Hirsch said when the gaoler held them up. ‘I have an escort outside.’ The gaoler shrugged and returned to his desk in his office at the end of the cell corridor.

Hirsch fell into place behind Matthew, his pistol covering him as they exited the police station. Matthew saw two uniformed soldiers with rifles waiting for them.

‘Now,’ Hirsch said softly.

Matthew looked quickly to the two German soldiers standing to one side before falling into their positions as escorts. Their rifles were slung on their shoulders as commanded by their officer. He had stood them at ease outside the gaol before entering to fetch his prisoners. The Australian swung around and snatched the pistol from the German officer’s hand. Had Hirsch been uncooperative, Matthew was fully aware that his rash act would have proved fatal to himself. The startled escorting soldiers saw what had happened and immediately reached for their rifles, unslinging them from their shoulders. But before they could level them on Matthew, Hirsch had called on them to refrain from shooting. Matthew had the pistol pointed at Hirsch’s head and hoped that it did not discharge accidentally.

‘Put down your guns,’ Hirsch commanded his men. ‘Or the prisoner will shoot me.’

With some reluctance, the two men lowered their rifles to the ground. ‘Step away from them,’ Hirsch continued. ‘Go into the gaol.’

Obediently, the two soldiers walked into the gaol to be met by a confused gaoler who then saw Matthew with the gun at Hirsch’s head. ‘Release the other prisoner,’ Hirsch
said. The gaoler picked up the key set on his desk, went to the cell and unlocked the door. Alex stepped out.